Ball in general, life on the road… on this blog, either you do or you don't.

Assorted thoughts

* I went by the Rose Bowl today. Still have never been to a game there, but as a college football junkie, what a great place even to go look at. It’s a beautiful setting, and to know all the history there… Someday I’ll go to the game. Someday.

* ESPN.com has a poll up asking whether the suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw are fair. How can they not be? The rule is clear. Leave the bench, at all, you get suspended. Don’t want to get suspended? Well, don’t leave the bench. This is entirely on those two guys. They screwed up, and they cost their team. I’m pulling for the Suns in that series, but even so, it’s hard to feel too bad for them.

* Not a good move to push back the World Series and lengthen the LCS, IMO. Of course, there’s the obvious weather issue, as the later you push things back the worse the weather gets. And the down time between the LCS and World Series will not help keep interest up. But more than that, I have a competitive problem with it. The postseason already rewards the top half of a roster too much. Adding the extra day to the LCS makes it even more about your top 2-3 starters, and makes the postseason less a true test of how good a team is from top to bottom.

Want to have the WS start later? How about going to seven-game Division Series? Want to start the WS on a Wednesday? How about ending the regular season earlier, maybe by adding some doubleheaders or even knocking a few games off the schedule, and start it the previous Wednesday to what they will be doing.

-M.

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What’s interesting to about the Stoudemire/Diaw suspension story is that, according to the ESPN.com story you link to, Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen left the bench in the first half of Game 4 and didn’t get suspended. According to the story, Elson’s foul on James Jones wasn’t considered an altercation but Horry’s foul on Nash was.

I didn’t see either of the plays, so I don’t know what happened, but I’m not sure how this makes sense. If Duncan and Bowen left the bench, shouldn’t they be suspended, too?

If the names “Duncan” and “Nash” hadn’t been involved, would the league really have gotten involved the way it did? How about if it was a regular season game with Duncan and Nash?

The suspensions of Stoudemire and Diaw are correct according to the letter of the law.

The law however is about as stupid as it gets. True, the NBA has a PR nightmare due to players like Jackson and Artest, and in order to combat it they feel like they have to have strong rules/penalties. This is true to a certain extent.

If a player is going to stand on top of his car, shooting a gun in the air, that needs to have a strong penalty. If a player is going to beat his wife and run into the stands to start a fight, that deserves an extremely strong penalty. Players doing things that are outrageous and “thuggish” deserve harsh penalties. And this is why I have a problem with this rule.

These reactions were nothing heinous, nor were they outrageous or “thuggish”. As a matter of fact, a good argument can be made that these are good family values.

Would anyone stand to see their little brother get pushed around (or endure enough punishment that the offense warranted a two game suspension from the playoffs)? No. It’s not like Stoudemire went in throwing haymakers. He stood up for his teammate, and as we all know, teams are like families.

So the rules have done the opposite of what they are supposed to do. Instead of punishing the problem and cleaning up the NBA, they have weakened the playoffs and furthered soiled the NBA’s reputation.

Until you have a commissioner that is willing to deal with problems like a man and stop trying to hide behind rules that he himself has set up to **** attention away from himself, this league will be horrible. And, until you have a commissioner that has played basketball and understands that teammates are going to stick up for their teammates, this league will continue to distance itself from the common fan.

In short David Stern is a complete idiot and I hate him with a passion. Much like Selig, the only thing he can correctly do is bring money to the owners. So, I doubt we see the end of him and his incompetent rule anytime soon.

As The Herd guy on ESPN noted, the letter of the law is deeply ambiguous and enforcement is utterly interpretive and discretionaty… the definition of altercation is uncertain, the definition of vicinity is uncertain and there’s another word in the rule that’s also vague… letter of the law, my *^$.

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